Standard 8.25 - Lexington and
Concord
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C HAPTER
Chapter 1. Standard 8.25 - Lexington and Concord
1
Standard 8.25 - Lexington
and Concord
8.25 Identify and explain the significance of the major battles, leaders, and events of the American Revolution,
including: (C, E, H, P, TN)
• Battles of Lexington and Concord
First Continental Congress
FIGURE 1.1
What do you do if you fail as a storekeeper and farmer? Become a lawyer! That’s what Patrick Henry did. By the
time he became a member of the First Continental Congress, Henry was known as a great orator.
Americans were fed up. The "Intolerable" Acts were more than the colonies could stand. In the summer that
followed Parliament’s attempt to punish Boston, sentiment for the patriot cause increased dramatically. The printing
presses at the Committees of Correspondence were churning out volumes.
There was agreement that this new quandary warranted another intercolonial meeting. It was nearly ten years since
the Stamp Act Congress had assembled.
It was time once again for intercolonial action. Thus, on September 1774, the First Continental Congress was
convened in Philadelphia.
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FIGURE 1.2
The Intolerable Acts
• Quartering Act (March 24, 1765): This bill required that Colonial Authorities to furnish barracks and supplies
to British troops. In 1766, it was expanded to public houses and unoccupied buildings.
• Boston Port Bill (June 1, 1774): This bill closed the port of Boston to all colonists until the damages from the
Boston Tea Party were paid for.
• Administration of Justice Act (May 20, 1774): This bill stated that British Officials could not be tried in
provincial courts for capital crimes. They would be extradited back to Britain and tried there.
• Massachusetts Government Act (May 20, 1774): This bill annulled the Charter of the Colonies, giving the
British Governor complete control of the town meetings.
• Quebec Act (May 20, 1774): This bill extended the Canadian borders to cut off the western colonies of
Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia.
FIGURE 1.3
Colonists came together at the First Continental Congress to protest the Intolerable Acts.
•
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Chapter 1. Standard 8.25 - Lexington and Concord
This time participation was better. Only Georgia withheld a delegation. The representatives from each colony were
often selected by almost arbitrary means, as the election of such representatives was illegal.
Still, the natural leaders of the colonies managed to be selected. Sam and John Adams from Massachusetts were
present, as was John Dickinson from Pennsylvania. Virginia selected Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, and
Patrick Henry. It took seven weeks for the country’s future heroes to agree on a course of action.
First and most obvious, complete non-importation was resumed. The Congress set up an organization called the
Association to ensure compliance in the colonies.
( Pictured Above: Carpenters’ Hall — the meeting place of the First Continental Congress)
A declaration of colonial rights was drafted and sent to London. Much of the debate revolved around defining the
colonies’ relationship with mother England. A plan, introduced by Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania, proposed an
imperial union with Britain. Under this program, all acts of Parliament would have to be approved by an American
assembly to take effect. Such an arrangement, if accepted by London, might have postponed revolution. But the
delegations voted against it — by one vote.
One decision by the Congress often overlooked in importance is its decision to reconvene in May 1775 if their
grievances were not addressed. This is a major step in creating an ongoing intercolonial decision making body,
unprecedented in colonial history.
When Parliament chose to ignore the Congress, they did indeed reconvene that next May, but by this time boycotts
were no longer a major issue. Unfortunately, the Second Continental Congress would be grappling with choices
caused by the spilling of blood at Lexington and Concord the previous month. It was at Carpenters’ Hall that
America came together politically for the first time on a national level and where the seeds of participatory democracy
were sown.
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Lexington and Concord
FIGURE 1.4
( Pictured Above: Ready to fight at a moment’s notice, minutemen began fighting early in the American Revolution.
Their efforts at Lexington and Concord inspired many patriots to take up arms against Britain.)
The Shot Heard Round the World from Schoolhouse Rock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZMmPWTwTHc
Britain’s General Gage had a secret plan.
During the wee hours of April 19, 1775, he would send out regiments of British soldiers quartered in Boston.
Their destinations were Lexington, where they would capture Colonial leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock, then
Concord, where they would seize gunpowder. But spies and friends of the Americans leaked word of Gage’s plan.
Two lanterns hanging from Boston’s North Church informed the countryside that the British were going to attack by
sea. A series of horseback riders — men such as Paul Revere, William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott — galloped
off to warn the countryside that the Regulars (British troops) were coming.
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Chapter 1. Standard 8.25 - Lexington and Concord
FIGURE 1.5
Regulars
It is a myth that Revere and other riders shouted, "The British are coming!" This warning would have confused a
good many of the Americans living in the countryside who still considered themselves British. The Regulars were
known to be British soldiers.
"We set off for Concord, and were overtaken by a young gentleman named Prescot, who belonged to Concord, and
was going home. When we had got about half way from Lexington to Concord, the other two stopped at a house to
awake the men, I kept along ....
In an instant I saw four of them, who rode up to me with their pistols in their bands, said ”G—d d—n you, stop. If
you go an inch further, you are a dead man.” Immediately Mr. Prescot came up. We attempted to get through them,
but they kept before us, and swore if we did not turn in to that pasture, they would blow our brains out, (they had
placed themselves opposite to a pair of bars, and had taken the bars down). They forced us in. When we had got in,
Mr. Prescot said "Put on!" He took to the left, I to the right ...
Just as I reached it, out started six officers, seized my bridle, put their pistols to my breast, ordered me to dismount,
which I did."
– Paul Revere, "Account of Midnight Ride to Lexington" (1775)
Lexington and the Minutemen
( Pictured Above: The first battle of the war, Lexington marked the beginning of the American Revolution.
Although Lexington and Concord were considered British military victories, they gave a moral boost to the American
colonists.)
Word spread from town to town, and militias prepared to confront the British and help their neighbors in Lexington
and Concord. These Colonial militias had originally been organized to defend settlers from civil unrest and attacks
by French or Native Americans. Selected members of the militia were called minutemen because they could be
ready to fight in a minute’s time.
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FIGURE 1.6
Sure enough, when the advance guard of nearly 240 British soldiers arrived in Lexington, they found about 70
minutemen formed on the Lexington Green awaiting them. Both sides eyed each other warily, not knowing what to
expect. Suddenly, a bullet buzzed through the morning air. It was "the shot heard round the world."
Concord
( Pictured Above: Thomas Gage was appointed commander in chief of all British forces in North America in
1763.)
( Pictured Above: This map detail Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride to warn the colonists of British troops’
arrival.)
The numerically superior British killed seven Americans on Lexington Green and marched off to Concord with new
regiments who had joined them. But American militias arriving at Concord thwarted the British advance.
As the British retreated toward Boston, new waves of Colonial militia intercepted them. Shooting from behind
fences and trees, the militias inflicted over 125 casualties, including several officers. The ferocity of the encounter
surprised both sides.
Battle of Lexington and Concord
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Chapter 1. Standard 8.25 - Lexington and Concord
http://www.ducksters.com/history/battle_of_lexington_and_concord.php
FIGURE 1.7
Battles of Lexington and Concord
http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battles-of-lexington-and-concord
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Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen Join the Cause
FIGURE 1.8
Benedict Arnold
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Chapter 1. Standard 8.25 - Lexington and Concord
FIGURE 1.9
Ethan Allen
Shortly after the battle, an express rider carried the news to New Haven, Connecticut, where a local militia commander and wealthy shopkeeper named Benedict Arnold demanded the keys to a local powder house.
After arming himself and paying money from his own pocket to outfit a group of militia from Massachusetts, Arnold
and his men set off for upstate New York. He was searching for artillery that was badly needed for the Colonial
effort and reckoned that he could commandeer some cannon by capturing Fort Ticonderoga, a rotting relic from the
French and Indian War.
Up in the Hampshire Grants, part of modern-day Vermont, Ethan Allen who led a group called the Green Mountain
Boys, also had the idea to capture Fort Ticonderoga. The two reluctantly worked together and surprised the poorly
manned British fort before dawn on May 10, 1775. The fort’s commander had been asleep and surrendered in his
pajamas!
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Battle of Lexington and Concord
http://www.ducksters.com/history/battle_of_lexington_and_concord.php
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